


She'd Be California

by mrsvc, sinstralpride



Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-14
Updated: 2010-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:38:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsvc/pseuds/mrsvc, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinstralpride/pseuds/sinstralpride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>California was home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She'd Be California

Missy was Texas. Missy was everything that Texas was to Sheldon. She was the trailer park and bullies. She was the oppressively loving Mother and distant father. She was the lack of higher education and everything that Sheldon had wanted to run from. Yes, he loved his family as much as he could be expected to but he had wanted nothing more than to escape it for something higher. So he was never homesick for Texas when he was sent to boarding school, and there was always a bit of fear of returning festering in the back of his mind.

But he wouldn't always be afraid to return to Texas – afraid that it would suck him in and never let him go, that it would somehow trap him in the old life he'd finally escaped – especially after he won his Nobel Prize. After that his relationship with Missy would be much more comfortable, since she had mellowed out after having her first child, and they could be on an equal footing – at least emotionally and in their family dynamic. He was far superior intellectually anyhow. He would always love Texas, even when she made fun of his comic collection.

 

***********************************

  
Ilsa was Germany. She was his grad student assistant when he was teaching in Germany. She was twenty-six years old but light-years behind him. She had married at twenty-four and had a baby a year later and was now trying to come back for her Ph.D. but she was all that Sheldon admired in drive and academic determination. She was dusty college bookshelves and grading papers in the dim lamplight. She was subatomic gravity and his first interest in String Theory. She was a tweed jacket and the first time he had held an infant in his arms. But Ilsa was just a colleague and he didn’t miss Germany when his stint as visiting professor was over.

Germany had changed him though, made him grow more than Texas ever had. He learned to get by without seeing his Mee-Maw every Sunday and Wednesday, even if her weekly letters weren't quite the same as her hugs that smelled of lilacs and chocolate chip cookies. He wouldn't admit, even to himself, that he missed those hugs. He learned to differentiate between mocking and flirting in Germany, and Ilsa's sweet laughter at his confusion over the interest some students displayed in him peppered many memories of his years there. Germany was chalk dust on his fingers after a difficult proof, and the sweet melodies of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra as he lost himself in the rhythms and patterns of the song. Even if Germany was just one place in a line of possibly many places his genius was needed, it would always be important to him and he would always be grateful to Germany for what it gave him.

***********************************

When Sheldon packed up for his expedition to the arctic, he had left with the same sort of feeling he'd had when he had left home for boarding school or when he left boarding school for Germany. He was now sitting at his desk in the Arctic Science Center, stringing his laptop electrical wire through the little hole in the back of the desk top while all the other scientists set up pictures of their wives and children. Young scientists with newborn babies and young wives, older men with distinguished wives and pictures of their daughter’s wedding, middle-aged men with their sullen teenagers sons and prima-donna daughters. He pulled his laptop out and plugged it in before opening it. The only other young, unmarried scientist (a geologist there to study core ice chemical compositions) had a desk next to Sheldon’s. He walked by as Sheldon’s screen saver rotated through the pictures of his going away party. Penny had commandeered his laptop a few nights ago and changed the screensaver but he hadn’t had to heart to change it back to the more energy efficient black screen.

 

“Oh, hey, Coop,” he said, pulling out a notebook and shoving a pencil behind his ear. Sheldon rolled his eyes at the infernal nickname he had unfortunately acquired on the long, unavoidable plane ride. “That looks like a pretty nice little party you had there.” The pictures ran through Howard and Raj in various awkward poses next to a Wonder Woman cardboard cutout and Leonard looking long-suffering but happy.

 

“I suppose it wasn’t a terrible party. I at least managed to keep them mostly sober.”

“Wow, party hardy there, Coop.” The last two pictures in the rotation were of Sheldon and Penny. He had been sitting on his couch, sipping his Diet Virgin Cuba Libre when Penny had pressed herself against his side and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Raj had caught the shot mid-eye roll. The next picture was one Penny had made for him. She had taken a very nice picture of herself blowing a kiss to him through the camera and had photo-shopped the words “Come Home Soon!” with a little heart to dot the exclamation point. “Whoa, Coop! Got that waiting at home for you, huh?” He slapped Sheldon on the back with a smirk. “Where is home for you, Coop?”

 

“California.” His subconscious knew it was true in more ways than one.

***********************************

Six months of equations on the theoretical physics of the shifting glaciers later, Sheldon was on his return flight home. He had asked for two different pillows and three bags of the hiney roasted peanuts* before he lapsed into a fitful but excited nap. He exited the plane with a few glares from the stewardesses and went to the baggage claim to retrieve his other two suitcases. He walked toward the main thoroughfare, trying to fish his iPhone from his pocket to call Leonard to find where he should go to be picked up. He kept walking, his suitcases jumbling and bumping into his calves. He looked around, thinking perhaps Leonard had already arrived and was waiting for him. He caught something bright orange and covered in his name. "Welcome Home Sheldon!" was outlined with black marker and colored in with silver glitter. He looked up from the sign to see Leonard, Howard, and Raj with various forms of smiles and Penny squealing at the sight of him. He couldn't stop the smile that flitted across his features as he walked toward them. He received awkward man hugs from each of the boys before he turned to Penny. She smiled and asked him what he thought of her poster. He barely touched the edge before he glanced at her eyes.

"It's great except there should be a comma between 'home' and 'Sheldon'."

"Please," she snapped at him, "be glad I made you a sign at all."

"I see you solved your glitter clumping problems." She tried her best not to smile but couldn't keep the laughter inside. She rushed toward him and threw her arms around him, trapping the poster between them as she laid a big kiss on his cheek. "Careful, Penny, you'll get glitter on my-" He stopped speaking when their lips brushed. He started and pulled back but she just smiled and whispered, "welcome home" in his ear.

***********************************

Penny was California. She was scenic panoramic ocean views and summer all year long. She was Penny Blossoms after midnight and his first taste of coffee. She is Halo Night and running lines past his bedtime. She was the promise for truly being his own man. She was the promise of change that didn’t frighten him. She was acceptance of himself, not because of his fame in physics. She was friendship even if he wasn't what she expected. She was the comic book store and pink nail polish stains on his newspaper.

California was where he came into his own, where he was no longer the anomalous child-prodigy that drew stares and whispers and speculation about his age and just how smart he actually was. He would win his Nobel in California, he knew, because there was no where else on Earth that suited him better. And even the things about it that annoyed him eventually became his favorite things about California. The sound of raucous laughter and too-loud music of questionable taste drifting across the hallway, the rush of smoggy air whipping past his ears on the open highway and the maddening crawl of traffic jams during the rush hour they were only stuck in because she was driving him to a conference, and the ever-present "non-optional social conventions" that slowly became his favorite things to do on an Anything Goes Thursday. It crept up him when he wasn't anticipating it, this new-found love for California, but he wouldn't trade it for anything, not even a Nobel Prize.

  
California was home.

  
*This was a typo that we deliberately left in for your amusement. Perhaps it's not as funny when I explain that but the Grammar Nazi in me had to. To quote Sheldon, "If I could have, I would have."  


**Author's Note:**

> mrsvc : Why, hello there! So, one day, I bought the new Rascal Flatts CD and guess what! It had a song that BEGGED to be a song!fic. What could I do but write it? However, the song!fic was severely lacking in awesome. Ergo, I called in the reinforcements. Without sinstralpride , this would still be sitting in my Google Docs NOT being shared with you. I blame all the awesome on her. ALSO, this was written under the assumption that just Sheldon was going to the Arctic, not the whole crew.
> 
> sinstralpride : Thanks to mrsvc for letting me in on this brilliant little idea of hers, because even though I had some writers block on TBBT fic for a while, this really helped break it down and let the words flow again. Also thanks to lovelessnoire, fujiidom, and southern_heaven for the helping hand in getting this into shape. I blame all the awesome on mrsvc.


End file.
